


Life is Only on Earth. And Not For Long.

by Lyrabelacqua (orphan_account)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, like really really AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-04
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Lyrabelacqua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Far in the future, at the end of the world. Robots a la Blade Runner may or may not be involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Earth was a cold, dark place. The sun’s sure ascent seemed slower, somehow, its light blanched and weak through thick clouds that never parted. It set much quicker than before, too, the sky rich with unreal color for the briefest of moments before the dark swallowed the world up whole. The irony of these sunsets—each more glorious than the one before—was not lost on Sandor Clegane as he laughed aloud, stubbing out his cigarette and sucking in bitter air before retreating from the tiny terrace. It was the air, after all, the same noxious air that was slowly choking the planet and everyone left on it, that made the sky shimmer as it did.   
  
He edged into the hallway—too narrow, this apartment made him feel claustrophobic for the first time in his life—and shuffled towards the kitchen, where he knew she would be waiting. The heavy night settled over his shoulders with each step. He stopped at the doorjamb and leaned against it. Sansa stood perfectly still in the cramped kitchen, her head tilted away from him and half-hidden in her own cloud of smoke. She was wearing the blue, the same dress she had worn on the day she found him again, the day they ran, a column of deep blue in an otherwise colorless space. She had paused in the middle of something (dinner: two cans not so far expired) to stare after the sunset through the dingy window. Her pinned-up hair seemed to glow with the dying flickers of light, but it must have been a reflection from the single bulb above. He was struck again by how little, truly, they knew about each other. Did this sunset remind her of another, one so far removed it may as well have been someone else’s life? He did not know, nor did he want to bother her with questions she could not answer. Her memories seemed to comfort her, although he knew they must pain her too, as it pained him to remember the time before.   
  
He must have sighed because her reverie broke. She smiled briefly at him, placed the cigarette just on the edge of the windowsill tray, and returned to her task. It amazed him, what she could create from nothing. This place that had been dank—but at least electrified—only days before was now almost comfortable. The microwave still worked, and soon two chipped bowls sat steaming at the tiny formica table, neatly set. She had even found a pitcher and poured water—cool and very nearly clear—into two small glasses etched to look like lace. “People used to drink tea from glasses like this,” she chirped. “My mother had a set.” She smiled as she poured, lost again. Her manners were precise and graceful and hard to kill, even here where there was no use for them. He supposed that setting the table and making dinner—her constant need to pretend—comforted her as well. It made him want to weep, that she would try so hard (for what? for him?) with so little reason left in the world to try. It was overwhelming.  _She_ was overwhelming. He wanted to throw the glass at the wall, to watch her shoulders jump at the shatter, but he stayed his hand and spoke instead.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
She looked up, mouth full of soup. She was amused, more than anything. Had he ever thanked her before? She usually felt so useless besides his silence and sturdy capability. She wondered if he was mocking her again, he always seemed to be teasing her, testing her. “For what?”  
  
“For … for making us dinner. For all of this. It means a—I’m glad. That you’re here.”  
  
She was silent for too long. He wished immediately that he had stopped at “thank you.”  
  
She put her spoon down slowly and reached across the table. He realized she meant to take his hand and dropped his own spoon too quickly in his haste to reach her. She laughed, but not unkindly. She had never touched him like this, but still it was familiar. He could feel her bones through her skin, her surprising strength as she dragged his hand towards her and kissed his knuckles, so lightly he wondered if it was real.  
  
Such a small thing, to reach for another’s hand. But it surged through him like hope, as stubborn as her manners. It  _had_  to be real. She  _had_ to be human (if she wasn’t, what was he?). If he was so stupid to have thrown what little life he had left away on a shade, an imprint, one of  _them_  … then he deserved everything he would surely get when they were found or the Earth burned to dust—whichever came first. He had taken her away because he had wanted her, plainly, and when he asked if she wanted to leave, the “yes” was all he needed. He couldn’t have fucking cared less if she was the real Sansa Stark or a Carbon Corp copy. Bitterness twisted deep within him when he thought of it now, how low and crude and utterly selfish he had been—and all the while she treated him like some hero and he felt like a thief.  _If she was real, if she was the one I knew before,_  he thinks,  _she never would have come with me._    
  
 _The years must have changed her, that is all,_  he wished, he prayed, he believed. If those years had not killed her, maybe they had made her stronger. And Sansa Stark or not, she was full to the brim with memories belonging to the red-headed girl he had known once. Such specific things, she remembers as if describing a photo. It was one of the signs, he remembered, each time she spoke of the past. Real human memory was abstract and porous. But she  _saw_  them, she  _felt_  them (a mother who braids her hair, a wolf dog that paws the snow, four brothers, one sister). How could he deny her so little when it made her so happy?   
  
Oh, the Carbons remembered. They remembered forever and ever and further back. That had been their first purpose, after all. What good was the replacement child, the substitute lover, if it did not have the memories of the original? They were called heralds of the future, when really they were built of the past.

But it would never occur to a Carbon to move beyond the limits of its own recollection, to form a new connection outside of the one predefined by the memories they thought were their own.   
  
 _To touch someone untouched in memory._    
  
It was a flaw the makers had concealed carefully, but created nonetheless, in case the day came (and didn’t it, always?) when the distinction became essential. It was difficult to do, a subtle process. The Carbons were meant to be human, after all, and they feared and desired and lived and  _lied_  like humans. For a time, Sandor Clegane had seemed built for the purpose, defined by his ability to cull them from those they lived amongst.    
  
He looks down at their still-clasped hands. She reaches for him again, this time to cup his cheek, and his own memories burn across his vision. He knows, then.  _She could be something new, something I don’t know._  The fear coils and sinks.  _Something that can learn. I would never be able to tell the difference._  But lifting his gaze to meet her stare once more, he sees the only truth he cares to know. She does not look away from him any more. When their lips meet, he forgets what it is he had ever feared.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to get back into writing Sansan and ended up back here. I promise I'm working on "Without the Sun," but I want to complete it before I start posting new chapters.
> 
> In the meantime, a tiny follow-up no one asked for!

“Sandor.”

Her voice was distant, he wondered if he’d imagined it in his muddled half-sleep. But then she was beside him again, one cool hand flat on his chest. The space beside him where she’d lain moments before was still warm. 

“Sandor.”

He sat up, listened for the whirring engine, the creak of strangers’ steps, whatever it was that had woken her. The little room was an eerie grey, but it didn’t feel early enough to be dawn.

“What time is it?”

She looked down, knowing why he was asking. “A little after two.” 

A little after two...by the light around the edges of the window, he would have guessed five. His head felt very heavy. She stood from the edge of the bed and reached for his hand.

“I--I think it’s really happening. Come look.”

He was conscious of every shift in his weight as he got up, the solid heaviness of every step as he followed her, her hand his only tether.

She waited until he was beside her before she moved the curtain away, her hand unsteady. The sudden light made them both wince. The sky was the wrong color. It glowed with a fiery, unnatural green, the sparse clouds above were burnished orange flame. The sun was in eclipse, small but visible, its hard clean edge black against the sky. The moon--once held in promise, when the rumors of the Earth’s dissolving atmosphere had proved true--was cool and blank, unmoved by the struggles below it.

Sansa could hardly bear it. She turned away to look at him, but could not escape the light, found it shadowed and reflected in his burns. She brought her hand to his face, so dear to her now where it had once been so fearsome. His eyes followed her hand and met her own. He swallowed and looked away: her eyes were bright with the same orange as the sky.

Outside, a fierce wind whipped past. The air smelled like burning, so sharp it stung. The sky grew brighter and brighter, a hot white light that seemed to consume everything it touched.

She couldn’t tell if his arms were shaking around her, or if it was the very air that vibrated. He opened his mouth to speak but his voice broke in his throat before he could find the words. She just held him tighter, fitting herself as close as she could get to him. 

She closed her eyes as the window shattered.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Lars Von Trier's "Melancholia."


End file.
